Data Base Users Fear New Rules Group Wants Congress To Head Off Restrictions

February 13, 1987|By JIM McNAIR, Business Writer

The government`s attempts to restrict foreign access to unclassified data bases might have a chilling effect on electronic information retrieval by U.S. citizens and companies, said officers of a data base trade group meeting in Boca Raton.

In the last decade, the Department of Defense and National Security Council have spearheaded efforts to regulate the free flow of sensitive, yet unclassified, information to hostile powers. The NSC defined sensitive information in 1984 as that which could adversely affect ``national security or other federal government interests,`` including ``government or government- derived economic, human, financial, industrial, agricultural, technological and law enforcement information,`` as well as the privacy of personal and commercial proprietary information.

Because the definition covers so many areas, members of the Information Industry Association in Washington, D.C., fear the government will begin to restrict public access to generally available information. Moreover, they say restrictions on what can go into the non-communist world`s 3,200 data bases could severely impair the international competitiveness of U.S. companies.

Almost universally, information now available from computerized data bases has long been available in books at research libraries.

``They`re suggesting that data bases would be subject to restrictions requiring users to prove they are American citizens or that they would keep track of who`s looking at what information,`` said association President Paul Zurkowski at an executive retreat at the Boca Raton Hotel and Club.

Data bases are electronically stored files of information that are widely available through computer subscription services. Chemical Abstracts, LEXIS, NEXIS, Dun & Bradstreet and the Dow-Jones News Retrieval services are common examples of data bases, each providing a specific type of information for subscribers. Many data bases can be used at public libraries and colleges.

Early last year, an Air Force team surveyed the information industry to find out what kind of information was available on data bases and who was using it. Zurkowski said the industry cooperated with the investigation but has yet to see the the team`s classified report.

The industry is afraid that the government will soon be monitoring the people using data bases, said Kenneth Allen, a former Defense Department official who is now senior vice president of government relations for the Information Industry Association. Allen said the question of restricting ``sensitive`` information should be discussed publicly.

``It may be that the old rules (on information access) don`t apply and that new rules need to be developed,`` Allen said. ``But we feel that these new rules need to be developed in the Congress of the United States, not in the Defense Department.``